Pages

Sunday, September 29, 2013

I have enough lemon juice in my freezer to last at least a year now. We’ve had a hybrid citrus tree in our backyard for about 5 years. It hasn’t done much for us until this year. I’ve heard numerous times that citrus trees take a while to really produce anything worthwhile. Well, all of our dreams for this little (or not so little anymore) tree came true this year. As mentioned, the tree is a hybrid so we have key limes, meyer lemons, ponderosa lemons, and kumquats. We’ve gotten a few kumquats, and the ponderosa’s are plentiful, but not great yet. The key limes and meyer lemons made up for everything else this year. We had more meyers than I knew what to do with and I couldn’t let them go to waste like some did last year. So, I decided to make “lemon juice pellets” that I could freeze and use throughout the year. Here’s the process.

I washed all of my lemons thoroughly. I am estimating it was around 50-60 lemons. First I cut each end off. Then, I halved some of the lemons, quartered others. I juiced them using my Breville Juice Fountain. This produced several batches of beautiful and extremely fragrant lemon juice. I poured the juice into mini muffin pans and froze that for a few hours. After freezing, I popped out each pellet and filled freezer bags with them. Whenever I need lemon juice, I simply let a pellet melt, which only takes a few short minutes. I’ll also add that I left all of the rind on when I juiced them. The smell was incredible, this was beyond easy, and it’s so convenient to have lemon juice at the ready whenever I need it.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

2. These boots…holy SWOON! And, Seleta has a really great coupon for them, so visit her site to check it out.

3. Fell in love with this ring after seeing C. Style put it in the middle of two diamond bands

4. And since I am always talking about figs, I found this great resource from Martha in which she includes several awesome recipes. By the way, my fig tree is still bursting with baby figs and I’m so excited.

5. This is a great, pretty affordable store that I just discovered over the summer.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

I am rarely ever without a jar of coconut oil. It is so versatile, and it’s uses range from cooking oil to facial cleansing oil, to everything in between.

Here are eleven ways I use coconut oil:

to coat vegetables that are are going to be roastedfor sautéing veggieswhen baking, as a substitute for other oilswhen making homemade granola barsin salad dressing (mixed with other ingredients)as cuticle moisturizeras after shave leg moisturizerin hair to tame the frizzon the scalp to help drynessas a makeup removeras a facial cleanser

I use coconut oil quite often in my kitchen in place of other oils. I’m also loving it as my face cleanser. I’ve cleansed only with oil now for the last 6-8 months. This method really agrees with my skin as my skin tone has evened out greatly and I rarely ever breakout. Makeup comes off very easily with coconut oil as well.

I’ll leave you with a recipe for my favorite facial scrub.

Coconut Oil Lime Sugar Scrub

1 tbs coconut oil1 tsp lime juice1 tbs sugar of your choice

Mix together and slather this on your face in circular motions. You will wake up the next morning with fabulously bright skin!

Monday, September 9, 2013

I’ve been wanting to try this fig pizza since last summer. As you know, I absolutely love figs and can get them pretty easily during the summer months. I based my recipe off of Kate’s, and it did not disappoint. Well, it was actually FABULOUS!

I used this crust recipe, which is my “go to” gluten free pizza crust recipe. It’s delicious, but you may want to double the batch for a larger pizza. I also added 2 tbs. fresh basil, garlic, and onion powder to the pizza dough for a little flavor boost.